la vida

it's this infinite lección en paciencia, creo yo

cada día a new oportunidad to grow, to become

to enjoy life as an alma soltera y libre,
to learn from ayer,
to live fully hoy,
to look forward to lo que viene la mañana

and

sobrevivir
paciencia
lecciones
that's life,

¿no crees tu?

Allen and me
Originally uploaded by LeishaJo.

so this was supposed to go along w/ the other pics.... taken before he left on tuesday!

cancun

i read that bush has been chillin' in cancun, doing some presidentialish stuff, probably using some of the mexican language that he knows....... likely getting a good idea of how the majority of people in mexico live....... probably ready to return and make a difference.......

ah-hem.
probably?
maybe?
possibly?
or not.

meet allen

Allen and me
Originally uploaded by LeishaJo.

did i ever tell you about the friend i made in guadalajara, with whom i spent my last four days in mexico (guanajuato)? meet allen, who spent the winter months traveling mexico by motorcycle-- all of mexico. after keeping in touch by email between the months of january and march, and after he left mexico to brave the weather and travel back up to the infinite blizzard that's called canada, i received a visit........ (see next few posts!)

allen and me

so the very end of spring break brought a special visit from allen, shown here in the pics. it was an awesome visit................ and i can't wait to see him again, wheneeeeeeeever that might be (not worried about that right now; i know it'll happen sometime!!!!!!).

Gearing up to go home
Originally uploaded by LeishaJo.

"Hasta luego!"
Originally uploaded by LeishaJo.

casi en juarez

so mexico eliminated the usa from the baseball classic! vivaaa!

speaking of which, countdown to arrival in juarez, mexico: one more day! spring break, service trip, pcusa border ministry, here i come!!!!!! hope everyone has a safe and fun spring break-- i know we all deserve it!

bsod, you stink

dear blue screen of death,
i think you really stink.
especially when you pay me a visit on the saturday morning right before mid-terms, when i really really really need the laptop, and when (and how convenient is THIS!?) 2fix doesn't open until sunday night. i've practically lived in the library getting done all that i can, but you know, the library closes at 9 on saturday night, which means there are hours when i'm awake and can't get the work done that i need to get done. and you know, i think i'm the only person here who's really insane enough to complain about the library closing so early on a saturday night.
anyway.
i'm a little frustrated with you, and wish you'd leave my laptop alone.
but, if and when you go, could you leave behind the hard drive, just the way it was?
--bv student with laptop frustrations

travestido

i learned how to say "transvestite" in spanish today.
isn't that exciting?

it's friday!
hooraaaaaaaaaaah!

happy day!

thank you, beth

"where i was, where i am, and where i will be"

a reflection on this comment to beth from last may:

where i will be
is already
where i was,
and where i will be
is currently
where i am.

amazing, isn't it?

and
she said today that i appear to have grown and matured quite a bit,
that i have a certain confidence to me,
that i have a new calmness about me.

i feel it, i told her. i really feel it.

"where i was, where i am, and where i will be."

who'd have ever thought?

option, arizona/mexico border

"So many times in my work I interact with migrants and then they disappear into the landscape of the desert and I never know what happens. Though I have visited areas such as central Washington and Yuma, Arizona, where migrant workers make up the dominant working class, it has always been hard to make the transition between the migrant in the desert and the migrant in the workplace. This weekend opened my eyes and helped be take another step forward in seeing the migrant as a part of a community and seeing the connections in a brand new light.

The trip started with that overnight drive to LA. It is the same long freeway that takes us all 500 miles from Tucson to LA, and we split it between two drivers. I took the later shift and was driving as we pulled in to East LA at 4:30 a.m. We were due to start broadcasting at 5:00. We took the Lorena Street exit and pulled up to this large warehouse of a building while the streets were still empty. The four of us (who were all awake now) strained hard to find any symbol that would suggest that this was our destination, and finally we saw Rueben, the promotions director for the show. We parked the truck and walked in the service entrance to the building to discover it was a mercado, somewhat of a cross between the markets of Guatemala and the typical suburban mall on a smaller scale. As “El Gordo” started broadcasting, we set up a canopy and table outside on the street. We were told that people would just slow down and honk or wave to get us to bring the five gallon buckets in which people put donations. Before we had even gotten set up a gentleman showed up and asked in broken English if we were the people setting up tanks of water in the desert. I was prepared for the arguments that I have become so accustomed to discussing but when another volunteer responded “yes, that’s us” he simply said thanks and dropped a five dollar bill in the bucket. “It’s not much,” he said, “but I heard you guys on the radio on my way to work and wanted to stop by.” It was the beginning of two amazing days of stories and conversations about this Latino community over a hundred miles from the border but for whom the border was a real part of their history and life.

The weekend went on and at every moment I was amazed at the generosity of the people. As I took turns with the other volunteers standing on the street, I heard stories of individuals crossing, of people trying to find work, and of friends and family looking for a better life, both in the States and in Mexico. Some people I thanked them for there generosity, like the business owner who pulled 120 gallons of water out of his warehouse to donate, or the truck driver who responded to the on-air request for a semi-truck to move the overwhelming number of donations. With others I stared in disbelief or tried to convince them not to give so much. One man, a 20-something landscape worker just signed over his paycheck; I was moved to tears. What struck me was the sense of identity that this community had with the migrant and how when confronted with the distress of a community member, they reacted without hesitation. It was not a community that was destined or even prone to political action. On the contrary they reacted with material goods they knew could make a difference.

In the last few weeks I have been continually faced with the question of whether my year of service was worth it. That’s a hard question that I so often find myself with. I can say with a somber reality that the situation on the border is no better than it was 11 months ago. People are still dying for lack of water, families are still being split up, and humanitarians and Border Patrol alike are fighting a losing battle. Like a man who begged to get our attention in LA and then could only eke out the words “I lost my brother in the desert.” I am speechless. We must see national immigration policy reform before we see a change on Arizona’s border.

What I can say is that I have made a difference. Just like four teenagers I gave water to last weekend, the lives that I have helped to save in the desert live on in communities like Los Angeles, Colorado, Spokane, and across the United States. They are people who are living, working, and contributing to the richness that we live in. And so the value of community is not lost on me, whether it be in the desert heat, with my housemates here in Tucson, or our community of friends and family in Spokane."

--current yav to borderlands on the tucson/nogales border area

option, argentina

"Lice. It’s something most kids in the United States get at least once in kindergarten, romping around on the bright-checked, classroom carpet. I remember that I got them once, was treated at home with a special shampoo and combed free of the pests. Here, in my community and in most where our volunteers work, lice or piojos are more common and harder to get rid of. I noticed the kids at my church scratching their beautiful manes of black hair early on, but didn’t pay too much attention to it. I had been warned that I might get lice, but the comment got lost in the barrage of news that I received upon arriving at my placement. So, when I had been scratching my head for a few weeks, I figured it was because of the cheap shampoo I’d been using.

It wasn’t until I went to the pool with a fellow volunteer and the kids from her placement that I became lice-conscious. In order to get in the pool, all the kids had to be checked for lice and then had to wear swimming caps. Christine and I weren’t exempt from this rule. After a day at the pool, sporting some fashionable, black swimming caps, Christine and I went back to her house to shower and change. She offered to search my head for any intruders that may have swam from a kid’s head to mine. After a few minutes of searching, she found them. Not lice, but nits. The eggs that hatch at any minute to become lice. Based on the quantity found on my head, I had been a carrier for at least a few weeks.

I was surprised that I had had creepy, crawling insects on my head for weeks and hadn’t realized it! I was una piojosa—a lice-headed girl! Now, I better understood the title of the popular Argentine punk band, Los Piojos. That name identified them as social outcasts, an identity they embraced.

I, too, embraced my lice. Not literally (I did several intense shampoo treatments and invested in a metal lice comb so I could exile the buggers from my head), but figuratively. In some way, I was proud that I had gotten lice. I thought of all the times I had naively let the kids at church play with my hair, give me pig-tails with their hairbands or rub their little heads against my neck. I thought of the lice as evidence of my immersion in my community.

I have often seen that what separates me from people in the community here are my middle-class upbringing, my education, my loving family, my understanding of the future. But in spite of those differences, my scalp was no different from that of little Samo at church. The lice didn’t discriminate based on our social backgrounds. So, while I am happy to say I am now lice-free, the experience gave me more insight into the reality of Quilmes, Barrio Santo Domingo."

--brooke mcclelland, current YAV to buenos aires, argentina

personal note: i spent a day hanging out w/ brooke when i was studying in buenos aires. she, as well as 3 other YAVS, shared about their experiences so far with the YAV program and the sites they're at in buenos aires, as well as some yerba mate. feelings before hanging out w/ them: i want to be a YAV. feelings after hanging out w/ them: ok now i REALLY want to be a YAV. this is the latest newsletter from brooke... stay tuned for more.